Whatever happened to TeleMadrid

Free to Air Spanish Channels

Once a very popular free Spanish channel, one of the very few still free to air, on the Astra satellite, TeleMadrid has had extreme problems and has been missing for many months.telemadridExtreme Over Staffing Levels

According to El Pais, the over bloated number of staff at the station has caused major reshuffles to descend and cut the numbers by up to 80%. Financial audits done back in 2004 pointed at this problem and in 2006 the government had to bail out the company to the tune of 20Million Euro, but nothing was done until last years proposals to cut the enormous budget to half its 2013 level and sack 925 staff members at the company, which is what prompted the strike which has caused the blackout of the station as staff went on strike.

Only the occasional Notice programme or still photo has been broadcast since December last year 2012. Even a visit to former regional premier Ignacio Gonzales by employees at Telemadrid, to hand over a letter of petition  to “save the lives of 925 families” has not managed to change the course of the management plan.

 Debt

TeleMadrid were well known to be pro the regional government and have racked up a massive 260 million euros debt, in part due to the huge numbers of  journalists hired who were sympathetic to the party in power.  The previous head of the Channel Esperanza Aguirre would try to interfere with presentation of the News , in that if a journalist would disagree with her view she would just hire another, more sympathetic replacement.  This carried on until there was gross duplication in all departments.

Will it Come Back

So for the future programming will be reduced to just  newscasts, series, movies and two long-running programs Madrileños por el mundo and Madrid directo , these being produced out of house by private companies. Lets hope the remaining staff can start the channel going again

Spanish tv advertising revenue may fall

Last year 2012, Spanish television channels broadcast 10% fewer advertisements than in 2011

Last year 2012, Spanish television channels broadcast 10% fewer advertisements than in 2011 – the first time for 10years that commercial ads have fallen from one year to another , according to Zenith Media. They reported that the number of advertising spots had up until 2012 been growing year after year, according to Neeo.es.In addition, the  advertising minutes per day dropped by 11%, all this is happening within a context where more tv channels than ever before are showing.

So far, the reduction in the number of adverts hasn’t negatively affected the number of advertising minutes watched by the viewers, however, which was 22 minutes per day, the same as in 2011; neither did it affect the gross rating point (GRP) earned by the advertisers with each ad.

Zenith Media pointed out that the reduction in the number of adverts coupled with no fall in GRP indicates the growing effectiveness of the advertisements by 10% during 2012. The reduction in the number of ads comes at a delicate time for the Spanish TV sector in which advertising investment in national TV channels has dropped more than 35% since 2007, according to the latest report by Infoadex. This is despite the fact the TV viewing hours are still growing,  this January being a  month with the second most TV consumption in the history of Spain. The price of advertising slots has fallen to try to keep the advertisers coming back.

As a consequence of this drop in advertising investment some TV channels have opted to drop their prices which may in turn reduce future advertising. Worrying times for the Spanish broadcasters.